When We're Both Thirty

“You’re not just going to sit there, are you?” Gerard asks Frank after what feels like a few hours. In reality, it’s probably been about twenty minutes, but Gerard considers every minute with Frank an arduous lifetime of torture. Well, actually, he kind of likes just having Frank there, sitting in that stool against the counter, because it makes Gerard less lonely. He never really has company, and it helps that the company he now keeps looks like that. Frank’s got a nice face.

“Why? Is it annoying you?”

“Yes,” Gerard replies.

“Then I sure as hell will stay here,” Frank says. Despite the revelations, the air doesn’t seem to have changed much between them. Gerard still hates Frank. He still likes Frank. He still finds Frank hot, and he’s still falling for him. Not much has changed, he just feels insanely guilty because he’s been blaming Frank for something he didn’t do for almost his entire life.

“This changes nothing, you know,” Gerard says.

“No, it certainly does not,” Frank says, looking sad about something. Gerard looks at him quizzically, but doesn’t know what to say in response so he just scowls.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” Gerard says, as an excuse to stop having to look at Frank. He turns and grabs the mug of untouched coffee he made earlier, pouring it into the sink because it’s ice cold by now.

“Can I have some?”

“Ugh, will you leave after I make it?” Gerard asks, turning to look at him.

Frank shrugs, “I might.”

“I want a yes or no,” Gerard says.

“I’ve got a gig tonight, I’ve got to kill some time until then. You just might have to put up with me for a while,” Frank says.

“Jeez, you never fucking work!” Gerard says emphatically, “I mean, the money must be fucking great if you can afford that place you live in and still buy food. Look at this hellhole, I barely make enough to stay here.”

“And you’re not going to make any more than me if you don’t have a job,” Frank says. “I’m not the one who chose that apartment though, I just didn’t want to move out.”

“Well then who did?” Gerard asks, pouring water into the coffee maker that he really couldn’t afford buying in the first place, but there are some luxuries in this world that Gerard just can’t live without. Coffee is one of those luxuries. Also name brand toilet paper.

“No one,” Frank shrugs, “It’s not important.”

“Way to deflect any curiosity,” Gerard says, shaking his head. Gerard takes the cheap apartment route in most of his endeavors, because than you can always buy more pointless things like DVD’s that will sit on your shelf for years, only being watched when you can’t find something on TV. Mikey’s always really annoying when he comes over and Gerard tries channel surfing, because Gerard will groan about there being nothing on and Mikey will combat that with something like ‘there’s lots of things on Gerard, you just don’t want to watch any of them.’

“You’re apartment is a piece of crap,” Frank says, “I feel like I’m in the home of a heroin addict.”

“No heroin addicts here, just a man mildly dependent on coffee,” Gerard says.

“Same,” Frank nods, and Gerard turns back to him while the coffee maker starts percolating with a purring sound. It’s not a particularly nice model, but it’s cheaper than buying coffee, and it’s less work. It also makes the apartment smell like coffee which is the biggest bonus.

“Ugh, don’t say that. I don’t want to know any of the similarities you and I have. What I like to assume is that we are two different species. We are basically. You’re an idiot who can only spew off boring idiotic shit, while I am the dramatic opposite.”

“You’re dramatic alright. Dramatically foolish.”

“You’re so aggravating,” Frank says.

“Then why don’t you leave?”

“Because,” Frank says, looking around like he’s trying to figure out how he wants to end his sentence, “Just because okay?”

“Oh so you’re using that excuse again? Because is not an answer!”

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Because,” Frank says.

“You can’t just say something like that without expanding upon it. Frank, we’ve got a lot of history. Way too much history. Like, no one else has ever had nearly as much of a fallout after such a tiny misunderstanding, possibly ever. I mean, literally, this is some seriously messed up crap that you and I have been through and there’s no way to get past that.”

“You’re so negative.”

“Or maybe you’re just too positive.”

“You’ve literally ruined my entire life, and you’re telling me that I’m being positive?”

“Your entire life? Seriously? Entire? I’ve been much more productive than I thought,” Gerard says, “may not have a job, never done anything of any worth, but at least I managed to ruin your entire life.”

“Why are you so proud of that? Why on earth is that a good thing? You must realize that an entire life is a hell of a thing to ruin,” Frank says.

“Shut up,” Gerard groans, rolling his eyes. “Okay, so I ruined your entire life. Don’t know how I did that but congratulations to me. Why are you still here?”

“I just like to annoy you,” Frank says.

“Save it, that’s not why. We both know you’re completely overreaching on this whole irritating me thing. If all you really wanted was to annoy me, you wouldn’t need to be here, you’d just call me and hang up repeatedly, and as it is, you’re not even trying. You’re just sitting there staring at me. So what’s up? What’s actually up, why are you actually here?”

“I just am.”

“That’s not a fucking answer, Frank. We both know that I hate you, okay, and I don’t give a shit about you. Sure, maybe you look nice, okay, but your face is the only thing you’ve got going for you, you’re still an asshole, and we both know that I don’t actually like you, but then here you are clinging to me, every time I try to get away from you it seems you’re right there. Now, I can chalk some of it up to Mikey, but not this. Right now, last night, you’re here because you want to be. You came to my apartment when I think I’d made it pretty clear I wasn’t going to come back to yours, because you wanted to. It wasn’t Mikey, and you can’t blame it on him, because we both know that you didn’t have to come here. Maybe you asked for my address off Mikey, or maybe he just gave it to you, but that’s not the point, you didn’t have to actually come here, and yet you did.”

“So what’s that then? Is that your proof that I’m secretly in love with you or something?”

“Possibly,” Gerard shouts, confused as to how this direction came from that conversation. He was mostly just bullshitting his way to get on Frank’s nerves.

“Why do you insist on being so arrogant?”

“It comes naturally when I’m talking to you. Besides, you didn’t deny that you’re in love with me,” Gerard shrugs.

Frank just rolls his eyes, and puts his elbows against the counter, resting his head in his hands. Gerard looks over at him, and wishes he could busy himself with something else, but even wanting to ignore Frank isn’t a good enough reason for him to actually clean up the kitchen a little bit. The only good reason to clean up the kitchen is if someone holds a gun to Gerard’s head and tells him to clean. Even then it’s still something he’d have to think about.

“So is that a yes?”

“Is what a yes?”

“You didn’t deny that you were in love with me,” Gerard says.

“I hate you.”

“You’re supposed to.”

“How about that leaving? Why aren’t you leaving?” Gerard asks.

“Coffee,” Frank murmurs, pointing to the machine behind him. Gerard checks it to see that it’s not done yet, but that Frank was merely referring to it as an answer.

“You could make your own,” Gerard points out.

“But this way it’s free and it comes with that bonus of annoying you, and I’m not going to turn up my nose at something that generates a lot of anger in you.”

“Fuckhead,” Gerard mutters. “I have, supposedly, ruined your life. I don’t want to let you ruin mine, so I’m asking you to please, get the fuck out of my house.”

“You can’t seriously call this pigsty a house can you?”

“I will put a giant foot sized hole in your skull if you don’t get out,” Gerard says.

“Don’t flatter yourself, your feet aren’t above average in size in anyway. I would know,” Frank replies.

“Stop avoiding what I’m trying to say, Frank! Get out if all you’re going to do is sit there and insult me in my own... apartment place thing.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Well why now?”

“Because,” Frank starts, “never mind.”

“Do I really need to repeat this? Because is not a fucking answer!”

“Because! Just because, Gerard. Because I’m afraid that if I leave right now, you’re never going to talk to me again!”

“Oh and why on earth do you want to talk to me? You went ten years perfectly fine without talking to me, what makes now so different.”

“Because ten years made it easy to forget how much you infuriate me.”

“Why the fuck are you saying that as a defense? Like, if I infuriate you, wouldn’t that mean that you’d want to leave?” Gerard asks.

“You don’t get it, Gerard,” Frank says, shaking his head.

“I don’t? Then tell me! Explain it to me! If I don’t get it than just tell me what it is I’m missing.”

“You’re probably not smart enough to understand what it is I’m trying to say.”

“There you go again with the idiot insults,” Gerard says, shaking his head, “Maybe in your apartment I’ll let that fly, but this is my place. This is where I live, and if I say that I want you out, then you really can’t argue with me. So, either stop telling me I’m dumb, or get the fuck out and don’t come back!”

“I’m not calling you stupid because I want to insult you, I’m calling you stupid because you just are pretty damn stupid.”

“Seriously? I will kick you out,” Gerard says.

“Gerard, you are probably my least favorite person I’ve ever had the displeasure of being forced to interact with. Like, if I could, I would go back in time to when we used to be lab partners, and I’d punch you in the fucking face.”

“And you’re afraid of never talking to me again? You’ve totally lost me.”

“I don’t know, Gerard, okay? I just know that it scares me to think that you’re the only person besides my own mother that I’ve known for my entire life, and it kind of terrifies me to think that we lost that, and now I realize that if all of that shit hadn’t happened in second grade, you and I might’ve been best friends to this day.”

Gerard decides not to add the part where he and Frank might be married, because, that would probably be really weird to point out. Except, in all likelihood, they really would be together. There’s no one else who it would have made more sense for Gerard to have ended up with. And everything he’s learned about Frank in the last few weeks leads him to believe that he not only would’ve married Frank, he’d have been absolutely, completely, totally, crazy for him. As it is, Gerard’s pretty crazy for him. He’d give anything to switch bodies with someone so he could just fucking date Frank.

“Well we’ve lost a lot of that,” Gerard says, “and there’s no way we can ever take it back. Besides, I’ve ruined your life, so you say.”

“You have,” Frank says.

“How though?”

“A lot of different things,” Frank says, “Small things, but they culminated into my life being hell, my mother being so disappointed in me she won’t even look me in the eye anymore, lost so many of my friends, and it’s all your fault.”

“And I did all that to you without having been in contact with you since we graduated high school?”

“Yes,” Frank says.

“Explain to me how.”

“No.”

Gerard huffs, “if you explain how than I won’t kick you out of my apartment like I direly want to.”

“I... it’s not really easy to explain,” Frank says, “and it’s not something I’d ever tell you.”

“Fine. Then leave,” Gerard says, pointing to the door.

“I don’t want to.”

“This is my home, I decide who is allowed to be here and who isn’t. Get out!”

“No!” Frank says.

“Well then explain to me how I’ve ruined your life,” Gerard says, and he tries to make his voice sound like he’s putting his foot down, but Gerard has trouble being stern. His voice is not well equipped to handle anything that’s meant to be taken seriously. Mostly he just sounds like a little kid pretending to be a grown up. He may actually just be a trench coat filled with two extremely well-balanced toddlers.

“It’s complicated,” Frank says.

Gerard tries to look as irritated as he possibly can, walks over to the door and holds it open for Frank. “Then leave.”

“No,” Frank says.

“You leave my apartment or you tell me how I ruined your life. I think I deserve to know. I haven’t even talked to you in ten years before last week and you’re blaming me for your whole life being ruined! This is not something I can just shove under the carpet and ignore.”

“Like I said, it’s complicated,” Frank says.

“Yeah well, I don’t have a job. I’ve got time. You said you’ve got time to kill, explain it to me.”

“I think the coffee is done,” Frank says, to avoid saying anything.

“Not that easy,” Gerard says, shaking his head.

“Alright fine!” Frank shouts, walking over to Gerard and slamming the door shut in front of the both of them. Gerard had expected him to leave, honestly.

“What?”

“I’ll tell you then,” Frank says, angrily.

“Oh. Right. Go ahead,” Gerard says, walking back to his spot in the kitchen.

“I don’t, ugh, it’s hard to explain.”

“We’ve gone over that. It doesn’t have to be though, out with it.”

“Fine!” Frank yells furiously, “I’m in love with you.”

“You’re what?” Gerard asks as a feeling settles in his stomach like the titanic literally crashing into him. It’s actually worse than that. It’s a feeling comparable to being hit in the head with a meteorite.

Then it occurs to him that he might have just entered a reality prank show. That’s got to be it. No other explanation for it. He’s being punk’d. Except the look on Frank’s face is really convincing. Someone needs to give him an Oscar, because Gerard believes, just for a second, that he might be telling the truth.

“I’m not going to repeat it.”

“You’re... you’re kidding, right?”

“No,” Frank says.

“But we hate each other. You hate me. You’ve admitted to that already,” Gerard says.

“I do hate you.”

“But how can you... how does one, uh,” Gerard mumbles before drifting off into some dimension that doesn’t have him as confused as this one. He really wishes he could just walk out of his apartment and step into someone else’s life. Full on Dollhouse or something.

“I don’t know!” Frank says.

“You can’t have both of those emotions at the same time! It’s redundant! You can’t love someone and also hate their guts! That makes no sense. That’s like saying blatantly subliminal or Republican feminist, it’s just not possible under the guidelines of their fucking definitions!”

“You don’t think I know that?” Frank says.

“How has that ruined your whole life then?” Gerard asks.

“Well it’s mainly the fact that I don’t want to be in love with you and the fact that I know it’s true makes my skin crawl just thinking about it, but it makes it hard to do shit. Like date people for one, that’s hard. Anything past dating has proven to be impossible.”

“Proven? Proven how?” Gerard asks.

“It’s not important.”

“You said you’d tell me how I ruined your life! How did I ruin your life? Make me understand!”

“You just did, I mean, you have. You’ve ruined my life quite well. It’s because of this that my life has been ruined. I can’t seem to get past it. I hate it, and I hate you, but I think I’ve liked you for a really long time too, like, not in the ‘hey let’s promote the idea that boys who are mean to you actually secretly like you’ sort of way, because, can you talk about normalizing abusive behavior. I mean, I like you completely differently, and I don’t know how to put it, not really, because it’s really pretty messed up and I hate it, but that’s just the way it is. Like, I mean, I can’t help it, okay! I can’t help but picture you and I, and it’s disgusting, but really really nice, and I wish you weren’t so fucking hot because it would make this easier to get over, but even if you were ugly, you’re still Gerard, and you’re still the little kid I played with every day, and you’re still the guy that I’m madly in love with and I don’t know how else to put it.”

“Why would you tell me all of this, though? I mean, seriously? Frank, why on earth would you actually admit to loving me? That’s not something you just tell someone who you also just told that you hate.”

“Because I’m afraid of the fact that you’re going to push me out of your life and not let me back in. Gerard, if I could help the way I feel, you’d better know that I would. And I could kid myself, I tried really hard, but being around you is making it impossible. I love you, and you know what, I have for about twenty years.”

“Oh god, this is a lot to take in,” Gerard says, putting his hands on the sides of his forehead like maybe if he holds his head together it’ll stop the pounding headache trying to make its way through.

“But we hate each other,” Gerard whispers to himself.

“I know!” Frank says.

“Is this why you’re mom is disappointed in you then?” Gerard asks, “because you l-love me?”

Gerard has trouble even getting the word ‘love’ out of his mouth. It doesn’t sound right. The only time when it’s appropriate to use that word, in Gerard’s opinion, is when you’re talking about pizza or Star Wars. Or maybe you’re saying love in reference to Éowyn or massive amounts of pasta. ‘Love’ cannot ever be said by anyone ever about another person, or at least that’s how Gerard feels right now. He all of a sudden can’t picture a good time for you to ever say that about another living thing. Maybe a cat, sure, you can love a cat, or a dog if you’re a dog person, but a person? People are not made to be loved. They’re made to be insulted and called fuckheads. Or maybe that’s just Frank. Gerard’s brain really is working in overdrive right now, he can’t even begin to form the right words to get across what he’s thinking.

“Not exactly,” Frank says in response to a question that Gerard doesn’t remember asking.

“What now?”

“There’s more reasons than that. Mostly by extension of this whole dilemma with me loving you even though I hadn’t talked to you for over ten years. I don’t even know how it’s feasible that it stayed true after that long, and I honestly thought I’d gotten you out of my head enough to just fucking move on, but apparently not.”

“So you’re the bitch!” Gerard says.

“I’m the what?”

“That guy you have a picture of in your wallet! You’re the bitch who broke the two of you up. There’s always a bitch, even if it’s mutual. Someone’s got to be the bitch,” Gerard says.

“I think calling me the bitch would be the understatement of the century,” Frank says.

“What did you do?”

“I made a very very huge mistake that cost a lot of people a lot of money,” Frank replies.

“Seriously, what did you do?”

“Gerard,” Frank says in a tone that suggests that he does not want to do anymore explaining.

“What did you fucking do?” Gerard asks, “You’ve already shown me your hand, Frank, you might as well give me the rest of the cards.”

“It’s not... I, it’s not really any of your business.”

“Tell me if I’m hot or cold then,” Gerard says, “Does it involve this guy you have a picture of in your wallet?”

“I’m not going to play this game with you, Gerard.”

“Just say hot or cold, than you won’t have to explain it to me!”

“You’re so fucking maddening.”

“Ah yes, but you are in love with me. Literally,” Gerard says, “So, hot or cold, is it Mr. Wallet guy related?”

“Ugh, yes, alright?”

“Okay, does this involve how you broke up?”

“How old are you actually? Six?”

“Close enough,” Gerard shrugs, “Break up?”

“Yes,” Frank rolls his eyes.

“It was your fault,” Gerard says, more of a statement than a guess.

“Yep.”

“Messy I’m assuming. Was it public? Did you break up with him on his birthday?”

“No, I wouldn’t break up with someone on their birthday!”

“Valentine’s Day? Oh, Christmas!” Gerard asks.

“No and no!”

Gerard thinks for a moment before he has a very dreadful idea that he really hopes Frank turns down, “hold on, this guy, he was your boyfriend at the time that you broke up, right?”

“Oh god,” Frank says, cringing, and putting his face in his hands.

“Oh my god, you did not,” Gerard says, “you said no when he proposed?”

Frank makes a really awful sound and shakes his head.

“You didn’t? So he didn’t propose?” Gerard asks.

“No, he did,” Frank says, voice muffled by his hands covering it up, and he’s probably beet red which is a good reason for why he’s covering up his face.

“Oh my fucking god. Oh my god. Frank! You’re... I can’t... please tell me you didn’t,” Gerard says, reaching what he feels is the only other conclusion to be drawn.

“I did,” Frank says.

“You bitch,” Gerard says, “Oh my god, I can’t even believe this. Like, there’s bitch, and then there’s fifty million miles of crap, and then there’s another couple of layers of being a bitch, and then there’s you.”

“I know,” Frank groans.

“You absolute bitch,” Gerard shakes his head, crossing his arms, “you left a guy at the altar?”

“I did,” Frank says.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Frank,” Gerard shouts, “you did that? You’re that awful a person?”

“I thought I could go through with it!” Frank says, finally lifting his head out of his hands, and looking at Gerard, though refusing to meet his eye. “I honestly thought I could. I thought that that’s how I would be able to get you out of my head. It had been, like, eleven years since I last laid eyes on you, so obviously I thought I didn’t love you, but then I just, I felt like I was going to puke every hour of the day. I felt so guilty and I felt so wrong, like I was lying or cheating, and I just couldn’t go through with it. But he was, like, perfect, you’ve got to understand that, and I wanted to love him, and to an extent, I did, but he’s just, he wasn’t, or, I mean, he isn’t, well, you. He isn’t you.”

“This is so many different shades of not fucking okay. Frank, you’ve transcended bad soap opera, you’ve now reached bad foreign language soap opera! You’re not making any sense in a horribly put together melodrama with shitty lighting in a completely different language. That’s how bad this is.”

“I know!” Frank says. “And what’s worse is that it’s for you! All for you, and you’re such a horrendous person, and you think I’m dumb and stupid for what I did, but I still love you, and I can’t do anything about it, and everything in my life is just so fucked up!”

“You’re just, I can’t get past how much of a bitch you are,” Gerard says, shaking his head and all of a sudden feeling bad for this ex. There’s just some things in the world that are so awful that saying they’re awful doesn’t do them any justice. Murder is one of those things. Taking the last slice of pizza after you promised someone else could have it. Not flushing the toilet in a public bathroom. And of course leaving someone at the altar.

Gerard also feels kind of proud of himself though. He knows he’s a bad person for that feeling, but he can’t help it. He ruined Frank’s relationship even though they hadn’t spoken in a dozen years. That’s pretty strong. It says a lot about how much Gerard must mean to Frank, and now Gerard just wants to scream at the top of his lungs that it’s mutual, but he can’t bring himself to that.

He doesn’t know what’s stopping him, because, really, he could just own up to it and he could go over there and make out with Frank and they could have a life together, but then again, he can’t just do that. Gerard doesn’t, for the life of him, know why he can’t do it, but he knows that he can’t. It’s something ingrained in him that he can’t give up so many years of thinking and feeling one thing to just let it go and feel the exact opposite right now.

But Frank literally ruined his own fucking wedding for Gerard, and Gerard wasn’t any the wiser. When it happened, he was probably playing Tetris, or head banging to the radio. He might’ve been getting turned down for a job or watch fucking House Hunters. The one place that he definitely wasn’t was in Frank’s life.

“This is too much to take in,” Gerard says.

“I should go,” Frank says, shaking his head, and Gerard can tell he’s already regretting ever having said anything.

“What?” Gerard asks.

“I should go,” Frank repeats, making his way to the door.

Despite the voice in his head, one that’s all too familiar to him by now, Gerard doesn’t stop him. He knows he’s supposed to. He knows that he’s supposed to run after Frank and make sure that he doesn’t leave. He’s supposed to go grab him before he gets too far and tell him that he loves Frank too, and they’re supposed to kiss and it’ll be perfect. He’s supposed to run down the street in his underwear and make sure Frank doesn’t get anywhere. They’re supposed to make out in the rain and fade to black, let the credits roll, and make every woman in the theater feel bad about their own partners compared to the relationship Gerard and Frank have.

That’s what he’s supposed to do, and Gerard knows that.

That’s not what he does though. Gerard instead watches Frank leave the apartment, lets the door shut behind him, and all Gerard does is stand there. He just stands there, not wavering, not even bearing to think right now because it sounds like it’ll cause his brain to implode in on itself.

He knows if he thinks, he’s going to have to think about him and Frank. He’s going to have to picture waking up on a Sunday morning with the guy he’s in love with right next to him, probably either snoring or drooling or doing something else unflattering that Gerard will find adorable. He knows that he’ll have to imagine himself picking between birthday cards at the pharmacy on his way home from work, one with pictures of dogs and the other with a really bad joke that Frank would really like, and he’d probably end up getting both cards. He knows that he’d have to think of marathoning Buffy with Frank and having a heated debate over Angel and Spike which would probably end with the two of them taking all of their clothes off. He knows that he’d have to think about family Christmases where Gerard’s mother would not only love Frank, but she’d probably like him a tad bit better than she likes Gerard, and he would get sick of hearing ‘so when are you going to have kids?’. He knows he’d have to think about buying boring adult things with Frank like salt shakers, or towel racks, but they’d also probably buy light sabers so that they could run around their apartment acting like small children.

Gerard knows that thinking about any one of those things will force him to chase after Frank.

But Gerard doesn’t move.